The present invention relates to a method of forming groups of flat products, in particular biscuits, for supply to a packing line.
The present invention is especially suitable for use in the food industry, particularly for packing flat food products such as biscuits or similar, to which the following description refers purely by way of example.
Biscuit packing lines are normally connected directly to the output of the oven in which the biscuits are baked, and comprise a vibratory conveyor on which the biscuits, usually rectangular in shape, travel with the longer longitudinal edges parallel to the traveling direction of the conveyor. As they travel along the conveyor, the biscuits, which are originally laid flat, are vibrated firstly into a partially overlapping position, and then into a gradually raised position "on edge" in which they are fed axially along the vibratory conveyor into and to the bottom end of a downward-curving conduit extending over an arc of substantially 90.degree.. At the bottom end of the conduit, the biscuits are therefore arranged one on top of the other in a column, again laid flat and substantially parallel to the vibratory conveyor, and are fed, normally one at a time by a transverse pusher, into the pocket of a conveyor, so as to form, inside the pocket, a group which is then fed by the conveyor to a wrapping line consisting of a packing machine.
The above known method of forming groups of biscuits for supply to a packing machine presents several drawbacks, foremost of which is the tendency of the biscuits, as they are raised from the flat to the on-edge position, to topple over at random, thus interrupting supply to the packing machine. Moreover, due to inconsistency in the size of the biscuits, the width of the curved conduit, which acts as a feedbox in which the biscuits are collected, must be larger than the average size of the biscuits, thus resulting in inconsistent positioning of the biscuits in relation to the transverse pusher, and, consequently, in packing problems due to inconsistency in the position of the biscuits and in the shape of the groups formed inside the pockets on the conveyor supplying the packing machine.